Whether you're racking up tuition fees now or still paying student loans after graduation, you know one thing is for sure: College is expensive. To make matters worse, the spending doesn't end at a semester of classes -- there's books that need to be purchased as well, and they're worth more than a little bit of pocket change.

But if you're going to school in California, a bit of relief has finally come your way in the form of two bills: SB 1052 and SB 1053.

Both bills, which were crafted by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), will allow California college students to download up to 50 core textbooks for free in the form of e-books. The e-books are for lower-division courses and are for classes at the University of California, California State University and California Community Colleges.

More specifically, SB 1052 allows for the development of the e-books and the creation of the California Open Education Resources Council for e-book approvals. SB 1053 has developed the California Digital Open Source Library to store the new e-books.

"Many students are paying more than $1,000 every year on their textbooks, sometimes having to choose between buying the books they need or paying for food and other living expenses," said Steinberg.

The new e-book bills were signed by Governor Jerry Brown on Thursday. They are expected to go into effect starting in the 2013-14 school year.

Digital textbooks are certainly becoming the new way of learning in institutions around the globe. This new form of educational offerings was further boosted by Apple earlier this year, who released iBooks 2 and iBooks Author that allow for the creation of digital textbooks and makes them available for purchase on the iPad.

Seems awesome for things like math, physics, chemistry, language courses, etc but dicey for "subjective" things like history. The weight/importance of various events could be controversial. I'm just thinking about things like the US Civil War, and the differing views on why it happened.

quote: I'm just thinking about things like the US Civil War, and the differing views on why it happened.

Schools haven't told the truth about that since day one, why would that change now? lol.

Ask any dumb American and he'll tell you he was taught the Civil War was all about "freeing slaves" and Lincoln was a hero, NOT a tyrant who declared war and murdered American's to squash a completely bloodless secession.

It had the benefit of freeing slaves, which is what most people consider the most important part(right or not). I'd wager 90% of Americans don't know much at all behind the actual political motivations, or the gathering of Federal power away from the states.

You have made the same idiotic argument before. Get your facts straight. South Carolina attacked a federal fort before Lincoln even took office. I haven't checked to see if the rebels were so incompetent as to have not drawn blood. I thought there were no fatalities, but this is kind of splitting hairs.

What a tool. The South wanted to leave peaceably, any reading of history will show that. They had no desire to spill unnecessary blood.

To further point out your sheer ignorance, if your assertion was true, after the First Battle of Bull Run the confederates could've very easily marched right in to D.C., undefended at that point due to their army being shattered, and they could've very easily ended the war right then. Killed whoever they wanted, burned the city down if they wanted, etc.

But no. They let the Union run. Lee at no point had any desire to do undue damage to the North. For Lee, they were brothers -- fellow graduates of West Point, no less. Every rational historical source describes the South's goals as very narrow; not conquest, simply being allowed to go their own way. Any thing they did, they did because the North didn't want to let them go.

If you want to call that belligerence or whatever, then you must think pretty lowly of those Syrians dieing by the hundreds fighting against a regime that doesn't want to let them go, either.

Even at the end, his officers urged him to let the army disperse to the bush, switch to guerrilla warfare, slowly murder the yankee's until they lost the will to go on -- Vietnam before Vietnam was even known. Lee, again, had no desire to put his country through that.

I'd make a joke about what kind of schooling you have, but it makes me wonder if you have any schooling at all on the matter.

As for Licoln being a tyrant, historians will not disagree, no matter what their opinion of him, because the facts are straight-forward. Political dissent during the war is something one did knowing it probably ended up with you hanging from a tree, or, if you were a newspaper that disagreed from the official line, it likely meant your newspaper press could get tossed in to the river at any minute by citizens...wearing blue uniforms.

'Lincoln, The War President' is a good book on the matter. It still ends up revering him if I remember right, but details scores of profound violations of civil liberties and the constitution. Lincoln could've very possibly died in jail if not assassinated. Just because you have a boner for the guy doesn't excuse ignorance of fact.

Did you just compare the democratically elected president of the US to a middle eastern dictator? Did you just compare people fighting to gain their freedom with people fighting to keep people enslaved?

Epic Fail

You are entitled to your opinion.The facts say the first shots were fired by the south and when the opportunity arose the south did invade the north. Sounds like a peace loving people to me... not.

Why Lee didn't attack the capitol after the battle of Bull Run? Maybe it was because he had a green army too that had just learned that an inexperienced army on the attack was more apt to loose. Or maybe Lee didn't attack then because he didn't assume command of the army of Northern Virginia for nearly another year.

I have never disputed Lee's genius, but to think that his was the only opinion in the South is assinine. What I do dispute is the fallacy of the "war of northern aggression" on an innocent, peace loving, southern people fighting for states rights.

quote: Did you just compare the democratically elected president of the US to a middle eastern dictator? Did you just compare people fighting to gain their freedom with people fighting to keep people enslaved?

While it is not apples and apples you are oversimplifying it.If half the country is willing to fight to the death over the wishes of the federal gov't it doesn't sound very democratic.And what else would you call a president who attacks his own people? Sound like a dictator to me.

Again I am not saying Lincoln=Assad, but rather that the comparison is not as black and white as you put it.

And as far as fighting to keep people enslaved? They were fighting for their FREEDOM to use slaves. Which at the time was not such a disgusting idea as it is now and The North BTW was very happy to use all the products coming from the slaves. (Not to mention slavery was on its way out anyway.) Again, not to jump to the defense of slave owners but you are greatly oversimplifying.

Which way do you look at the abortion issue? Pro-life vs. Pro-death or Pro-choice vs. Anti-choice? Or maybe Pro-life vs. Anti-life or Pro-choice vs. Pro-vag police?

quote: Did you just compare the democratically elected president of the US to a middle eastern dictator?

Hitler was democratically elected. Chavez stirs up all sorts of trouble, democratically elected. The Bolshevik rebellion which brought Stalin to power in Russia, which led to millions purged and scores more in forced labor, was a popular movement! What matters are what they do. You're just trying to hide behind a false veneer.

quote: You are entitled to your opinion. The facts say the first shots were fired by the south and when the opportunity arose the south did invade the north.

I deal in facts here, which you're only loosely acquainted with. The Confederates, you'll note, didn't march north until forced, and it was partly a strategic move. They needed to stay on the move, and they hoped it'd show the yanks it wasn't worth the fight. The South really got pounded when it tried to dig in and fight trench warfare against what amounted to the Zerg.

We don't have to say "maybe," since historians have done the work for us. D.C. was a short march away, some of his men were eager to do it. Nothing would've stopped them. Nothing! Burning D.C. was simply not what they wanted. Again, they wanted to leave peacefully.

quote: What I do dispute is the fallacy of the "war of northern aggression" on an innocent, peace loving, southern people fighting for states rights.

A popular movement of the people of the south wanted to part ways. Any government that attempts to force them from doing so after diplomatic processes have failed seems to be an aggressor to me. How else do you define it?

I'd encourage you to find a group of historical documents that prove the South was interested in truly by the aggressor with some goal other than parting ways with the North. That'd require documents among the CSA leadership and generals seeking, say, retribution, slaughtering yanks, or acquiring addition territory. It's not just my opinion; those documents simply don't exist. I think you've just listened a little too much to popular left-leaning, history-of-the-victor mythology, and not done enough research.

On Friday, April 12, 1861, Confederate forces opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor. On April 15, Lincoln issued a proclamation declaring that an insurrection existed and called upon the states to muster 75,000 militia troops, under the Militia Acts of 1792. The Militia Acts were passed by Congress in response to the Whiskey Rebellion that began in 1791 and gave the President authority to call out the militias of the states for the sole purpose of putting down an armed insurrection. On April 17, Lincoln signed the order to initiate a naval blockade of Southern ports.

Because neither the United States nor the Confederate States (nor Lincoln) ever issued a declaration of war, several court cases following the war depended on a definition of when the war started and ended. The Supreme Court was forced to decide the dates. They ruled that because a naval blockade is considered an act of war under international law, that the war began April 17, 1861 when Lincoln signed the naval blockade order.

Fortunately, history is about recorded events and the context in which they happened, not unsubstantiated opinions such as "a tyrant who declared war and murdered Americans to squash a completely bloodless secession."

I love how Liberals will demonize any military action taken in the middle east, for example, but will fall all over themselves to legitimize Lincoln's actions. Which were, frankly, extreme and unwarranted. And lead to the slaughter of nearly a million Americans on both sides without even the attempt at peaceful negotiations.

They say the winners write the history books, and that's never been more evident then in the case of the Civil War.

If you think using the full power of the US military against it's own people, including burning down civilian cities to the ground, is an appropriate response to the events you've listed, well, that's on you.

I tend to look back on it and ask if how it turned out was better than if he had done nothing. Obviously we have a federal government with much more power over the states now, but in the end, the country did become stronger. Geopolitically, it was also a good move. The cost was that we set a precedent where the Constitution and Bill of Rights were much easier to steamroll past.

If things had gone differently, we likely would have had several wars between the north and south which would both be much weaker on their own.

It's difficult to speculate which would have been better. We should just spend our efforts trying to change what roles the government plays in current day politics. Bring back state rights and pass laws legally, rather than by lobby.

quote: If things had gone differently, we likely would have had several wars between the north and south which would both be much weaker on their own.

I don't know why people always jump to this conclusion. There is an equally possible chance that the Confederacy could have been brought to the table, and through negotiation and compromise, rejoined the Union leading to a stronger more Constitutional country.

However since diplomacy wasn't even attempted, this is all speculation.

quote: We should just spend our efforts trying to change what roles the government plays in current day politics. Bring back state rights and pass laws legally, rather than by lobby.

It's too late. Rebellions like the Civil War, historically, are the only things that lead to the massive types of reforms we're talking about.

Why would the Government give up that much power today? Not without a fight. They've murdered their own people before to hold onto that power, and they would do it again.

But Clown it's refreshing discussing this with someone who doesn't instantly pull the "you just want slavery" card whenever this topic comes up. You have no idea :)

I agree with you; a lot of the key actors on the north and south were in fact mutual life-long friends with little animosity towards one another. A lot of soldiers, despite a lot of animosity, had friends and even family and brothers on the other side.

Given that, I think you're right, the two would've either came to a negotiated compromise (like just returning to the original constitution), or would've agreed to be separate nations and cultures but brothers in blood, closer to one another then any other 2 countries, maybe in history.

In a way, it's perfectly on target of how open source educational books can be a failure.

You've got the left here with their revisionist history, same as how modern America likes to forget the Japanese internment camps the left likes to forget about the giant dump Lincoln took on the constitution -- in order to save it, he would argue. (In fact, I think he actually DID argue exactly that) Then you've got the right, pointing out facts they find inconvenient, and offering perspective on the motivations of the South that modern liberals are very poorly equipped intellectually to understand... Not that they're dumb, but they're the ideological polar opposite of those people.

Economics and psychology are two other fields that could get messy on the margins. They don't publish much, and don't command as large a following among actual economists out there, but what they lack in number modern Marxist economists make up for in verbosity... They'd try to have their way with any open-source econ text. Even in the mainstream, ideas take time to be established.

Physics, even, on the fringes could be questionable. Imagine the e-rage that could come up over different explanations for the big bang, or over the safety and efficacy of nuclear power.

I, for one, would rather pay $100 for quality, curated knowledge and information than a lowest-common-denominator book of dubious value.

Ringold, if you're really worried about revisionist history, contribute to these projects! Part of that contribution is to stand up and say "That's not factually accurate. Here are my sources."

I really think you don't understand how open source works. It's usually not the free-for-all edits of Wikipedia, but rather each project is an organization within itself, with a hierarchy of authority, standard practices and policies.

Each change and contribution must meet certain requirements PRIOR to getting included into the project. Random people can't just log into the site, edit a few pages with nonsense, and expect it to get implemented.

Problem is, like with any open-source project, a professor can take a project, 'fork' it for his courses, stuff in his revisions, and indoctrinate wave after wave of students that'd never know any better.

And the open source model allows for anyone to fork the material. This means that people can fork and do something worse (which you point out) or fork and do something better (which you failed to point out). And I wonder which one will float to the top and be used by the best schools? You actually are afraid that people will chose the worst one?

Professors get tenure, and then are free to do whatever they want. Are you aware, for example, that there's liberal-arts school "Economics" programs out there stuffed with old-guard tenured Marxists that pump out wave after wave of indoctrinated little communists that go forth and never get jobs doing actual econometric work? In this happy world of best-case scenario outcomes, why do so many of these colleges exist with their centuries-outdated curricula?

While, I agree with you that nothing is ever free. The publishers and resellers seem to have found a way to print free money. They change the cover and switch a chapter or unit with another add a few questions in spots to make it harder to find the corresponding one in a an older edition. Bam last year's $300 text is $350. This has been happening for years (at least 3 decades that I have been part of the education system.)

It sounds like Mr Steinberg already knows where the cost difference is coming from.

"Many students are paying more than $1,000 every year on their textbooks, sometimes having to choose between buying the books they need or paying for food and other living expenses," said Steinberg. So if we're taking this $1,000 expense away from textbooks (and we can't make the students decide between $1000-more-expensive-tuition or food and other living expenses) then I guess the taxpayers in the Golden State will graciously pick up the tab. How kind of them!

Or maybe Steinberg is also orchestrating a massive scholarship/grant donation drive to cover the costs. Hmm. Doubtful.

Perhaps the goal is to persuade the greedy bastards in the publishing industry to cut back on their looting. Right now, they seem to have no competition (probably because of bribes to the professors, their bosses, and Washington).